“A Open-Ended Run, A Memoir” by Layne Coleman, University of Regina Press.
I thought I would end the year with a bang of a gift. I’m not reviewing a play. I’m reviewing Layne Coleman’s memoir entitled, ““An Open-Ended Run, a Memoir” by the University of Regina Press.
Layne Coleman came on Critics Circle, CIUT.fm 89.5 on Dec. 21, to talk about theatre, art, grief and his memoir. He said in our interview and in the first chapter that it took him 23 years to write. I was part way through it last week, and finished it, and it’s raw, heart-breaking, funny and illuminating about the theatre, life, grief and Layne Coleman.
‘An open-ended run’ is a theatre term that refers to a production that does not have a closing date. The production will run until people stop buying tickets, whenever that might be—hence open-ended. Layne Coleman likens that term to his life. Every day is a new day, a performance that is examined, revised, perfected and learned from, until the inevitable—death—happens.
It took Layne Coleman 23 years to write “An Open-Ended Run, A Memoir” because that’s how long he has been grieving his late wife, Carol Corbeil.
While Layne Coleman writes about the various milestones of his life—growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan, discovering his love of theatre, coming to Toronto to work in the theatre—It’s clear in his elegant, whimsical writing, that meeting Carol Corbeil, a journalist and arts critic, falling in love with her with some angst involved, marrying her, becoming a father, and losing Carol Corbeil to cancer in 2000 when she was 48—was the center of his life. And when she was taken from him, he grieved for 23 years, in a way to hold on to her, it seems to me.
Pop psychologist here—I can only surmise from reading the book and talking to him, that if he got over the grief, he might think he would get over her…and of course he didn’t want to get over her. Carol Corbeil was a force. Her columns for the Globe and Mail were thoughtful, perceptive and she wrote beautifully. She published two novels. She isn’t someone you ‘get over’. She is someone you have on your shoulder.
Layne Coleman was a single dad raising a curious, smart daughter—Charlotte–and so often through the book he would wonder what Carol would think of a situation he was in; how would she handle it? He was a loving father wanting to give his daughter the space to grow up and not hover too much. Hard decisions. Charlotte was nine when her mother got cancer. And 15 when her mother died.
So two people were grieving here in their own way. Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman went on to study theatre at the National Theatre School in Montreal majoring eventually in playwrighting. She wrote a play about her experience of losing her mother, in her play Scratch. And through it all, father and daughter became very close. Both had their ways of coping. Layne Coleman drank. Charlotte developed an eating disorder. He challenged her at one point that he would stop drinking if she stopped purging.
Layne Coleman is so self-aware of himself as a flawed man that he knew he might not keep the bargain. But he also knew his daughter and wondered about her resolve. I love Layne Coleman’s perceptions of himself, his flaws, his attempts at being a better man and father, knowing when to ease up on himself and not be so hard, but not wallowing in self-pity.
Layne Coleman’s writing is exquisite. He has a quirky style of writing with his descriptions and turns of phrase that leave you limp they are so poetic. He wrote a lot about being cast as Hamlet at Theatre Passe Muraille by his best friend Clarke Rogers, who was also directing. Clarke Rogers’ girlfriend was Carol Corbeil. Needless to say, Layne Coleman was mighty conflicted, being in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.
But he also has a stunning understanding of the character of Hamlet and how audiences perceive the role. There is this quote: “I knew the audience would be fixated by a somnolent familiarity with the story, that their preconceptions would be like cataracts in their eyes. I had to pierce their assumptions and memories of great Hamlets of the past. The task would be to gather them all into the present, because my Hamlet was soft and humble, most confident when alone in the privacy of his mind, which was where he would share his truths with the audience.”
Stunning assessment. “…their preconceptions would be like cataracts in their eyes.” What an image, and the book is full of such wisdom put as elegantly.
I’ve described the book as “raw” because Layne Coleman opens himself up to the most personal of memories. He spilled his guts to write the book. He bared his soul, revealed transgressions, regrets, expressed his doubts as a husband and father, but also recognized his successes as both. He takes the reader on the journey with him. At times it’s so moving you want to look away and put the book down. Layne Coleman won’t let you. In a way we remember our own journeys with grief, self-doubt, love, joy etc. And you are caught up short in a moment when you least expect it. There is a section devoted to Charlotte’s 18th birthday party and Layne Coleman wrote her a poem. It’s of a father so devoted to his daughter, so aware of her blossoming as a woman and so grateful to her for teaching him so much, that at the end, I burst into tears. And it was not just being moved easily, it was like a torrent, so overcome with the beauty of what he wrote, I sobbed—ugly sobs. Breathless, gasping. And then a few pages later, I’d be laughing out loud.
“An Open-Ended Run, A Memoir” by Layne Coleman is a wonderful, moving, graceful, beautifully written book about a man trying to be the best that he can be, stumbling, getting up, trying again and observing the world in the most poetic, thoughtful way.
Layne Coleman is a treasure and so is his memoir.
“An Open-Ended Run, A Memoir” by Layne Coleman can be ordered at University of Regina Press, Chapters-Indigo, McNally Robinson books, or you can order it where you buy fine books.